November 28, 2023 - City of Haverhill
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency · from the EPA · 3 pages · 654 KB
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Haverhill Robert E. Ward, Deputy DPW Director Water/Wastewater Division Phone: 978-374-2382 Fax: 978-52 1-4083 rward@ haverh iIIwater .com November 28, 2023 By Email Michele Barden U.S. Environmental Protection Agency - Region 1 5 Post Office Square, Suite 100 (06-1) Boston, MA 02109-3912 Telephone: (617) 9 18-1 539 Emai I: barden.michele@epa.gov Claire Golden Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection Surface Water Discharge Program 150 Presidential Way Woburn, MA 01801 Ema il: claire.golden@mass.gov; massdep.npdes@mass.gov Re: Haverh ill Comments - Massachusetts Water Resource Authority (MWRA) Deer Island - Draft National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) Permit No. MA0103284 Dear Ms. Barden and Ms. Golden: The City of Haverhill (City) respectfully submits the enclosed com ments on the draft N PDES permit (Draft Permit) issued by the United States Enviromnental Protection Agency (EPA) and Massachusetts Department o f Environmental Protection (MassDEP) for the draft NPD ES Permit for the MWRA's Deer Island Treatment Plant. The City appreciates the extended public conu11ent period and supports the additional public involvement that such an extens ion provides. The City owns and operates both a wastewater treatment facility and thirteen CSO outfalls w ithin its service area, which includes the City, which is an environmental justice community, and the Town of Groveland. As such, the City is interested in conditions and permit obligations imposed on other treatment faci lities in Massach usetts. Comments 1) Resiliency Planning. T he draft N PDES permit requires significant planning regarding operation and maintenance of MWRA's treatment plant and other infrastructure including development and implementation of a Sewer System F lood Events Plan as an e lement of the Operations and Maintenance Pl an. T he plan is required to take future conditions into consideration, including midterm (i.e., 20-30 years) and long-term (i.e., 80-1 00 years) and extreme sea level change. Page 1 of 3 Planning for a changing environment is a necessary obligation; however, City believes that the scope of such planning should be tailored to the permit cycle. The long-term nature of the planning (80 years in the future) in a permit that is valid for only five years is onerous and potentially costly where repeated corrections as more accurate information is developed over time occurs. Due to the complexity of issues to be reviewed, the broad scope of potential (and often unknown) future impacts and the long-term nature of climate change and sea level rise, it is unclear what operations or actions that must be taken because a facility is required to address all infrastructure and plan for potential changes or upgrades based on uncertain data and unknown future conditions. Further, the Draft Permit contemplates completion of this planning withing twelve months of the effective date of the permit. This is insufficient time to undertake costly and expansive planning. A facility must take into account a variety of information and potential vulnerabilities, using worst case information. This includes evaluating changes in precipitation, sea level rise, extreme weather events, coastal flooding, inland flooding, sewer flow, inflow, and infiltration and relevant to the facilities from a plethora of sources. The Draft Permit includes such sources as: ( 1) the data generated by the thirteen federal agencies that conduct or use research on global climate change that contributed to the latest National Climate Assessment produced by the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP); 2) climate data generated by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts; and 3) resiliency planning completed by the municipality in which a given facility is located (i.e., City of Boston) and incorporate the results of the evaluation in a manner that demonstrates that the control measures taken are precautionary and sufficiently protective. Evaluation must be completed by a on a five-year basis considering: 1) historical observations from all years the Permittee has operated the facility prior to this permit's term; 2) set midterm (i.e., 20-30 years) and 3) long-term (i.e., 80-100 years) ranges. The Draft Permit uses also requires evaluation of impacts related to "Major storm and flood events," which refer to instances resulting from major storms such as hurricanes, extreme/heavy precipitation events, and pluvial, fluvial, and flash flood events such as high-water events, storm surge, and high-tide flooding." The City believes that although planning is necessary and appropriate, EPA and MassDEP should limit the scope of such planning to near term impacts and improvements within the permit cycle and extend the timing to complete the planning. Because the proposed analysis is expansive, requiring assumptions on what is necessary presently versus in the future, and is well outside the validity period of any permit. EPA and MassDEP should detail the statutory authority for such long-term planning and the correlation to compliance with the Clean Water Act during the permit period. Any explanation should be very clear in explaining why such long-term planning, at great cost to wastewater treatment facilities and their ratepayers, is authorized by the Clean Water Act. 2) Industrial Pretreatment Program - PFAS Sampling The Draft Permit requires new PFAS sampling as part of the Industrial Pretreatment Program. As guidance, the Draft Permit identifies a broad and uncertain collection of industrial users (commercial car washes, platers/metal finishers, paper and packaging manufacturers, tanneries and leather/fabric/carpet treaters, manufacturers of parts with Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) or teflon type coatings (i.e., bearings), landfill leachate, centralized waste treaters, known or suspected PFAS contaminated sites, firefighting training facilities, airports and any other known or expected sources of PFAS) that must be sampled for PFAS by the permittee. Page 2 of3 The City is concerned about the scope of this obligation, and EPA and MassDEP's autho rity to require such sam pl ing, as it appears to require a permittee to identify potential PFAS sources outs ide of current industri al pretreatment program obligations. The cond itio n appears to require a permittee identify properties o r users that are not otherwise covered by the industrial pretreatment program but may be sources of PFAS, determine if a user or property is a potenti ally a source of PFAS, or identify any contam inated s ite with in its service area that might be, o r could be, PFAS contaminated. This obligation goes well beyond the industrial pretreatment program currently operated under NPDES permi ts and EPA's a uthority to require such investigation and sampling. EPA should be taking the lead on identify ing potential PFAS sources and regu lating such sources with Categorical Pretreatment requi rements. The City a lso is concerned about the capacity of laboratories to complete the sampling in as more fac ilities are required to undertake similar sampling. Few laboratories may be prepared for the magnitude of such testing in the limited timeframe proposed in the Draft Permit. EPA and MassD EP sho uld limit the req uirement for PFAS sampling to currentl y identified and permitted industrial users. While the Citv has significant concerns abo ut PFAS impacts, EPA and MassDEP should take the lead in identifying PFAS products and users. and reQulating the same. The s ignificant cost to undertake investigation and sampling of such users sho uld be borne by the users rather than ratepayers. EPA and MassDEP sho uld then separately regulate such so urces using other regulatory means such as Categorical Pretreatment req uirements. Thank you for your consideration of these comments. Sincerely, l(~Z. ~~ Robert E. Ward DPW Director cc: C hief, Environmental Enforcement Section, U .S. DOJ Joshua S . Levy, Acting U.S. Attorney, MA District Michael Wagner, USEPA, wagner.michael@epa.gov Kevin Brander, DEP, kevin.brander@state.ma.us 1. Andrew Go ldberg, MA Assistant Attorney Genera l, andy.goldberg@ state.ma.us Mayor James J. Fiorentini, City of Haverhill, mayor@ cityofhaverhill.com Wi lliam Cox, City Solicitor, [removed] Michael Leon, N utter, McClennen & Fish LLP, MLeon@nutter.com Matthew Snell , Nutter, McClennen & Fi sh LLP, MSnell@ nutter.com Mike Stankovich, DPW Director, mstankovich@cityofhaverhill.com Paul Jessel, Wastewater, pjessel@haverhillwater.com Isaiah Lewis, WWTP Facility Ma nager, ilewis@haverhillwater.com Page 3 of 3